Wielding a Red Sword (13 page)

There was a stir within the castle. Several gaunt figures came to the foyer. Rapture shrank away from them.

Mym recognized one in a black cloak. “Famine!” he sang.

Famine nodded. “And you are Mars,” he replied.

Mym turned to the others. “And you are—?”

“Conquest,” a big, hearty man in a white cloak said. He smiled, and his teeth showed like polished white ivory.

“Slaughter,” the one in the blood-red cloak said. There were ragged slashes across his face that dripped fresh blood. Rapture shuddered and averted her gaze.

“Pestilence,” said the one in the dirt-brown cloak. His face was a squirming mass of maggots. Rapture screamed and shrank away.

“My companion is distraught,” Mym sang. “Do not take offense.”

“Offense?” Pestilence asked, a maggot spraying out as he pronounced the
S
. “I am flatterd!”

They passed on into the castle proper. The castle staff was lined up, ready for inspection by the new master.

“Do you know how to serve royalty?” Mym sang.

“We do,” the head butler replied.

“Then see to the needs of the Lady Rapture,” Mym sang. “And provide me with a person who can tell me what I need to know.”

The butler snapped his fingers. Immediately two maids stepped up to Rapture. “We shall see you to your suite,” one said. “There is a bath waiting and a change of dress.”

Rapture hesitated, glancing at Mym. She didn’t want to be separated from him in this strange place.

“Did you meet the lesser Incarnations?” the other maid asked. “Aren’t they simply awful? I had bad dreams for days after I saw Slaughter, and as for Pestilence—!”

Rapture turned her gaze to the maid, discovering companionship. She relaxed. These people might be all right after all. She went with them.

“These are marvelously accommodating personnel,” Mym remarked.

“This is our station in the Afterlife,” the head butler said. “To know and serve your needs. The Lady Rapture will be made at ease.”

“Afterlife?” Mym sang.

“We are not among the living,” the butler said.

“But you seem quite solid.”

“Here in Purgatory, sir, everything seems solid, but only you and the Lady Rapture have physical substance beyond these environs. The rest of us—and the castle too—are only solid in a qualified sense.”

“I have some difficulty accepting this.”

“We are as pictures on a sheet of paper. When you confine yourself to that frame of reference, the pictures are sufficient. But when you exert yourself in the three
dimensional frame, we no longer have relevance. You have mortal substance that we lack.”

“Purgatory—is a picture on a sheet of paper?”

“In a manner of speaking. A facet of existence limited to a plane. From the surface of the Earth, mortals see right through that plane. But when you come to it, you join it and interact with us in what may seem to be a normal manner.”

“I can’t believe that you don’t really exist!”

“We exist, sir. But only in a limited sense. Heaven and Hell are similarly limited; only mortals have the full range of experience.”

“Isn’t this horribly restrictive? Don’t you feel imprisoned?”

“This is eternity. Though we lack the freedom to affect our destinies that mortals possess, we are freed from the concern about pain and termination that they suffer from. We comprehend the shape of our existence. Our reality is as if it were stretched out in an infinitely narrow but infinitely long path, unlike that of mortals.”

“To be a butler—for eternity? No reincarnation?”

“Not for eternity. Only for a few centuries, until the inevitable shift of the ratio of good and evil in us permits departure to Heaven and everlasting peace.”

“A few centuries!”

“It is worth it, sir. We have only to do our jobs—and these are not unpleasant jobs. It would be my pleasure to serve you even if my destination were not dependent on it.”

Mym would not have been satisfied with such a situation—but of course he was a mortal—or was he? “What is my status, now? Will I age and die in this office?”

“By no means, sir. You will remain fixed as you are now, for your full term, which will terminate only when war on Earth abates. You are an Incarnation of Immortality—a temporary immortal.”

“Who else is in this situation?”

“There are five, or perhaps seven, major Incarnations. Death, Time, Fate, War, and Nature, in addition to Good and Evil. There are a greater number of lesser Incarnations, such as the associates of War whom you met in the
foyer. But the only ones you need be concerned about are the major ones, who will generally cooperate with you.”

“Generally?”

“God, the Incarnation of Good, does not involve Himself with mortal matters, in accordance to the Covenant. Mortals must choose their own denouements. Therefore He will neither help nor hinder you, though He does watch you.”

Mym was glad that he had picked up a smattering of Western mythology; otherwise this would have been very confusing. “What of the Incarnation of Evil?”

“He is Satan, and because he is evil, he freely violates the Covenant. He will seek to do mischief, turning your efforts to his designs. He wishes to gain power by acquiring a greater number of souls than God possesses.”

This aligned with the warning Gaea had given him. Satan would cause trouble. “But how can he do this, if I am alert against it?”

“Satan is devious, and the master of misdirection. It is customary for him to, if you will pardon the crudity of the expression, work over new Incarnations. You will be a target, sir.”

“It is true that Satan conspired to eliminate my predecessor?”

“It is true, sir.”

“What did the former Mars do to arouse Satan’s wrath?”

“He supervised a challenge that the present Fate made to Satan, ensuring that it was fairly conducted. This enabled Fate to balk Satan’s design.”

“But that’s unreasonable!” Mym sang. “A fair contest—”

“Satan is not a reasonable entity, sir. He is interested only in his own design.”

“And Mars—surely he was not helpless in his own defense?”

“He tolerated the ploy.”

“Why would he do that, knowing that this would be to Satan’s advantage and that he himself would perish?”

“He did not perish. He went to Heaven. That is a consummation
devoutly to be desired. The cessation of war had been his most devout wish.”

“But that’s a conflict of interest! If he abolishes his job—”

“Not if one’s wish is to go to Heaven, sir.”

Mym considered that. “So Mars wanted to go to Heaven and could only get there by having his job end in a positive manner—so Satan facilitated that, and it behooved Mars to cooperate.”

“Exactly, sir.”

“But now Satan has a new and inexperienced Mars to, as you put it, work over.”

“Exactly, sir.”

“And I will not get to Heaven unless I succeed in abolishing war.”

“Admirably phrased, sir.”

“There’s only one catch.”

“Sir?”

“I don’t want to go to Heaven.”

“Sir?” The butler was visibly startled.

“I am a Hindu. Not a good one, obviously—but my desire is not for Heaven but for nirvana.”

The butler made a
moue
. “Then it would seem that Satan does not have the inducement to proffer you that he proffered to your predecessor.”

“Correct.”

“This should be a most interesting encounter, sir.”

Mym smiled. “Let’s hope so.”

 
7
 
BATTLE

The next day, as Mym perceived it, he received news of a battle that required his attention. He had spent a pleasant night with Rapture in the excellently appointed castle; they had made love and talked and watched the scientific television, which by coincidence was concerned with news of the recent change in officeholders for the Incarnation of War and seemed to be quite current. Rapture had perked up to hear herself mentioned as the mortal consort of the Incarnation and to see herself smiling prettily for the camera, though there had been no such interview. But in the morning that same television set turned itself on with the announcement of the battle, and Mym had to rouse himself for his new duty.

“But what of me?” Rapture cried. “I cannot go to battle with you, yet I fear to remain here alone.”

Mym began to perceive a disadvantage of complete dependence in a woman. “Let me investigate,” he sang.

He went into the elaborate lavatory, then snapped his fingers. Immediately the head butler appeared. The man did not enter; he just appeared. Now that Mym understood his nature, he was not surprised. “The Lady Rapture is concerned about
being alone in this strange place,” he sang.

“Conduct her to the East Wing,” the butler recommended.

Mym wasn’t sure how this would help, but he had already seen the competence of the staff here, so he didn’t argue.

After his toilet, which included the donning of a shining golden cloak of office, he emerged to rejoin Rapture. She had meanwhile been attended to; now she was stunningly lovely in a silken outfit of malachite green, with the lovely polished stones set in her hair. Princess indeed!

“After we eat, I must show you the East Wing,” Mym sang.

She raised a fine dark eyebrow.

“You have already explored the castle?”

“The butler told me you would like it.”

In due course they repaired to that Wing—and Rapture gasped with delight. It was very like the palace she had used on Earth, with glass windows and fountains and associated gardens filled with familiar plants. A high canopy even protected it from the torrential rains of the monsoon. In a lower reach a tame elephant waited.

“I must go to work,” Mym sang.

She hardly heard him. “Oh, how delightful!” she exclaimed, walking through the Wing, gazing at the lovely statuary.

Mym decided to depart; she would not miss him for some time.

Now he went to the front foyer. There were his associates, Conquest, Slaughter, Famine, and Pestilence, in their colored cloaks. “You know the way?” he inquired.

“Our steeds know the way,” Conquest said.

Steeds. He hadn’t thought of that, but of course they should be mounted. Gaea had told him that he had a horse—what was its name?—Werre. He went on out, and there in front were five excellent horses. There was no difficulty judging which one belonged to which rider, for they were color coded.

“Werre,” Mym sang, and one came immediately to him. He mounted the great golden palomino and knew
from the outset that this was a steed such as man dreamed of. The animal was powerful and supple and responded to his cues so readily that he could virtually guide it with a thought. This stallion was like an extension of himself.

The others were mounted and drew up beside him. Conquest was on an albino stallion, with totally white hide and blazing red eyes. Slaughter was on the red one, the color so intense it was almost gore. Famine was on the black animal, whose body glistened in such a way as to make the gloss seem like a skeletal outline. Pestilence rode the dirty brown horse, with patches of discolor that made it look diseased, though it was healthy. Mym remembered, now, that four grim horsemen were traditionally associated with War, but he wasn’t sure that these were the particular four he remembered. It hardly mattered; Purgatory and the Incarnations evidently had their own rules.